Арсен Аветисов – Political Narratology. How Stories Shape Power and Compliance (страница 9)
Some political narratives are built as a cycle. ‘We have always been like this’, ‘History repeats itself’, ‘Nothing new’, ‘That’s how the world works’.
In cyclical time, the possibility of an alternative disappears. If everything repeats, any effort seems naïve, and such a narrative is very convenient for preserving the existing order.
Linear and Messianic Time
Other narratives, conversely, appear linear and directed. History is depicted as a path to a goal: liberation, justice, greatness, prosperity, purification.
In such messianic times, the present is merely a trial, and the future is the reward.
This makes sacrifices possible; they acquire meaning and necessary value.
The Manipulation of Expectations
Politics does not deceive directly or openly. It always actively works with expectations. Promises can be vague, deferred, reformulated, postponed to the next generation, and explained by external circumstances.
Fulfilment is not the point;
We Are on the Threshold
One of the most persistent formulas of political time is the sensation of a threshold. ‘We stand on the threshold of change’, ‘we are at the final line’, ‘we are close to a turning point’.
Threshold time mobilises without demanding immediate results, keeping society perfectly in tense anticipation. The danger is different: the threshold can last indefinitely.
Generational Time
Political narratives always address generations. Some are told, ‘You must endure for the sake of the children’; others, ‘You are reaping the fruits of your parents’ sacrifices.’
Thus, responsibility is distributed across time, and discontent is softened by a moral argument.
A generation becomes the bearer of an imposed debt.
Time as an Instrument of Exclusion
The control of time is also control over a person’s belongings. Those who ‘do not understand the historical moment’ are declared backward; those who are ‘ahead of their time’ are dangerous; those who ‘live in the past’ are obstructive. In this way, time acquires another quality – it becomes a marker of loyalty.
When the Future Disappears
The most alarming moment is the disappearance of the future from the narrative. When power no longer promises but only warns. When the opposition does not propose but only exposes. When society stops asking the question ‘Where?’
At this moment, politics becomes the management of present fear without a definable horizon of the future.
Cynicism as Temporal Fatigue
Political cynicism appears as distrust of words, but in fact, it is fatigue with time. People stop believing not because they were lied to, but because promises no longer correlate with the lived present.
When the gap becomes too great, the narrative loses its power.
Why Understanding Temporal Architecture is Important
Understanding political time allows one to see what exactly is holding them: a promise, fear, urgency, anticipation, memory, guilt, or hope.
A person cannot step out of time, but they can see
The next question is inevitable: ‘If politics manages time in this way, is it possible to govern without narratives at all?’
Chapter 10. Why Politics is Inevitably Narrative
Myth thinks in men.
The Illusion of a Post-Narrative World
Contemporary people often believe that politics can be ‘technical’. That it can be managed by experts, algorithms, calculations, models, charts, neural networks, process optimisation.
It seems possible to dispense with stories and retain only management. But this is an illusion.
Even the most technocratic governance must still answer the questions: ‘Why?’ ‘For what purpose?’ ‘In whose interests?’ ‘Towards what future?’
And that is no longer technique – it is meaning.
Governance Without Meaning is Impossible
You can manage a machine without explanation; you can manage a process without emotion. But you cannot govern a society without answering the question ‘why?’
A human is not a mechanism; they cannot comply merely because an instruction is logical. They comply when they understand what is happening, accept a role, see a justification, feel a sense of belonging, and believe in a direction. All these elements reside in the realm of narrative.
Even the Rejection of Narrative is a Narrative
When a government says, ‘We have no ideology’, ‘We simply do what works’, ‘We are above politics’, it is already telling a story.
A story of rationality, neutrality, inevitability, maturity. And this, too, is a narrative – merely one masquerading as the absence of narrative.
It is also dangerous because it appears as the natural state of things, an existing given.
Politics as the Editing of Reality
Politics does not create reality from scratch – it edits it. It chooses what counts as cause, what as effect, what as background, what as centre, what as coincidence, and what as pattern. Editing is the right and the act of the storyteller.
Why ‘Pure Facts’ Do Not Work
A fact is an element; a narrative is the connection. Without connection, facts do not persuade and quickly become tiresome. Their excess without a story creates a sense of chaos.
In chaos, a person seeks someone who will offer a simple, comprehensible frame. Therefore, politics that renounces narrative always yields to politics that offers it.
Politics as Work with Identity
No society exists without answers to the questions: ‘Who are we?’ ‘Where do we come from?’ ‘What unites us?’ ‘What threatens us?’ ‘What is unacceptable to us?’. These are not philosophical questions but questions of a community’s elementary survival.
They cannot be answered with a calculated formula. The only answer is a story.
Narrative as a Form of Legitimacy
People submit not to an institution of power, but to the story that justifies it.
When the narrative collapses, the institutions remain – but cease to function. They begin to be bypassed, mimicked, sabotaged, ridiculed. And then power is forced to rely on coercion.
Violence as a Substitute for Story
When a story no longer convinces, force appears. This is a universal law of politics – violence signals the failure of narrative.
Where words have stopped working, batons, prisons, exclusions, and stigmatisation begin to work.
Violence never creates a sustainable story; it temporarily fills a void.
Why It Is Impossible to ‘Just Govern
The dream of governance without story is a dream of people without memory, without emotion, without identity. One could not call such people healthy.
Even if one tries to raise them as such, they will inevitably begin to create alternative narratives: rumours, jokes, myths, underground histories, ironic versions of the official tale.
A story always returns, in a different form or content.
Political Narrative as a Field of Conflict
Politics is inevitably narrative for another reason: narratives always compete. If one story fails to provide meaning, another appears. If one explains things in a complex way, another explains them more simply; if one is difficult to understand, another is seductively clear. The vacuum of story is never left empty.
The Attempt to Ban Stories
From time to time, power attempts to ban narratives. It bans interpretations, versions, alternative descriptions, and questions. But prohibition does not destroy a story; it drives it underground.